November 30, 2005

The first fire of the season in the living room of our 65-year old house.

The last few nights the low has slid to around 20 degrees Fahreheit with the days topping out at 40. There is a chill in the air that puts a flush on my cheeks. I love it. I miss the freedom of running outdoors without a jacket but I'm ready for a bit of dormancy. It has been an emotional year of loss and sadness and I'm ready to curl up in my easy chair, light the fire, sip a glass of my favorite Malbec wine and cocoon a bit.

A line from a poem or a play keeps running through my head: "The world is too much with me." Now I'm going to have to see if I can find who wrote it and what was the source. I found it. Here it is:

The world is too much with us; late and soon

by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;For this, for everything, we are out of tune,It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Anyway I've felt this year that the world was very much usurping my life, my energy and my optimism. I hope in just one month to reclaim a joyous outlook for the coming year. The family reunion I attended last week was a great beginning. I was reunited with family members with whom I differ on political and religious views but with whom I share a deep sense of family traditions and roots. It was wonderful to see a new generation of children growing up with some of the same customs and attitudes about family that I cherish--not a bad foundation if I do say so myself. Yes, it bodes well for a postive and joyous 2006--and I'm getting a head start.

November 28, 2005

High winds forced 18-wheelers off the road and formed wispy sculpted clouds.

On our return trip we stopped at a rest stop, mostly to rest from driving in a heavy cross-wind. I had to brace myself against a building to get these photos.

They look harmless enough but the wind that produced them was not--it was around 50 mph. Many trucks and other high-profile vehicles were pulled off the road beside buildings or on off-ramps below the highway level.

We were at the rest stop for about half an hour, mostly trying to persuade our 23-pound dog to brave the wind to do her business. As we were preparing to leave I caught a pre-sunset photo with clouds and backlighting of a picnic shelter. It was absolutely beautiful. I could have stayed longer--except for the wind.

November 27, 2005

We spent our Thanksgiving holidays in the company of 24 related persons, many of whom had not seen each other for over 30 years and some of whom had never met. In the photo above, my daughter-in-law from Brazil is teaching Emily to do the Forro (pronounced Fo ho), a dance from Northeast Brazil. A part of Lake Conchas, near Tucumcari New Mexico, is visible. We all stayed in various lake houses as guests of long-time friends of my aunt and uncle. Their son now owns their house and we used it as the "meeting place" but slept at the other houses or in one case a travel trailer. We all brought a lot of food, a lot of stories and a lot of love. We made new friends of cousins we'd lost contact with and are planning how and when to get together again. We played games and listened to keyboard music played by the newest member of the family--Vivion, my dad's wife of one week today. It was a great Thanksgiving reunion.

November 22, 2005

We are leaving tomorrow to drive 6 hours to a small lake in New Mexico where my cousin has a lake house. It will be a family reunion of sorts because I will see cousins I haven't seen in over 25 years and my sons and their wives will meet them all for the first time. It should be great fun for the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving. I'll be back to blogging by Sunday or Monday.

November 21, 2005

Though I am basically opposed to rote memory of facts without conceptual background, I have to say I am grateful to all my English teachers who required me to memorize poetry when I was young. I can still remember the entire body of some of them and enough of others that just hearing a few lines brings me closer to the subject. One of the poems I was required to memorize was this one by William Blake. Although I approach animal science from an evolutionary point of view, I still love the rhythm and imagery contained in Blake's poem.

November 20, 2005

In a previous post I referred to a mixed media technique that I learned in my figure painting class. I tried it on two paintings. I killed the first painting I tried it on with too much regular gesso. On this one I like the results for the most part. It is a good way to save a painting that has problems that cannot be fixed with watercolor alone.

I now have about five paintings that I'm willing to commit the money to having them framed. I guess that moves me from totally "process" to a little bit "product."

November 18, 2005

Animal art on the stall doors--front and back--in the Denver Zoo restrooms

I've seen restroom advertising but this is the first time I've seen art used in this way. I must say it was a pleasant addition to what is usually a drab decor. I dropped in just after the zoo had opened so no one was around to see me photographing restroom stalls. Well, I guess the secret is out now.

November 15, 2005

In Sunday's Denver Post I read this articlewhich I have been pondering every day since. As a long-ago high school teacher I was appalled that education, in the schools where I taught, consisted primarily of rote memory of facts and regurgitation of those facts on written exams.. There was rarely a thought of soliciting opinions about those facts, of imagining circumstances under which things might have occurred differently--with different results.

As my children went through school, more emphasis on a broader viewpoint, multiple options and understanding concepts replaced the search for the "one-and-only correct answer." Critical thinking and problem solving became the goal to be attained. Logic, psychology and the scientific method were taught in high schools, though not required.

Critical thinking has become a rare commodity in public discourse. To think critically, in my opinion, is to be able to follow a logical sequence of thought and recognize the difference between reasoning toward a conclusion supported by observation or evidence and choosing a conclusion then seeking justification for that outcome. In recent years, critical inquiry in search of solutions for problems has been replaced by "euphemisms," "talking points" and "spin"

One of the main influences on my attitude toward critical thinking came from the whimsically named CSICOP (Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). In the mid-1980's we drove to Boulder to hear Steven Jay Gould speak. He was not only the guest speaker but a founding member of CSICOP. Over the years we have attended several of their conferences. The main purpose of the organization is to re-enforce the idea that if scientific claims are made, then the examination of that claim must be through the scientific method with controlled studies, collection and analysis of data and submission of all results to peer review. Thus if a claim is made that wearing a green crystal around your neck will cure your gall bladder, then it must be submitted to a scientific inquiry to determine if there is evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship.

It was not until my university studies that I was introduced to sciences and it completely changed my world view. In my opinion, an "educated" person should have a basic knowledge of science and it saddens me that the US is lagging behind most other developed nations in cultivating knowledge of science and mathematics. I don't think everyone should become a research scientist or physicist but I do think that if more people understood "natural" causes, there would be less dependence on "supernatural" solutions.

November 07, 2005

No, this wasn't at sunset; it was at 2:30 in the afternoon. The wind was blowing near the ground to create lenticular blotches back-lit by the sun which the turbulent clouds had obscured higher up. By the time we had returned home with our grand-daughter about 3:45, the sky had almost cleared of clouds.

November 06, 2005

For at least 10 years this distinctive building has stood against "progress."

One of the things I love about Denver is that there is a good mixture of past architectural styles alongside the new. Our city is diverse, not only in its people and attitudes but also in its architecture. One of my favorite ways to pass time is to take the self-guided--and sometimes guided--walking tours through our city. We still have buildings standing that were here in the silver-mining days of Denver's origin. I love this old building and applaud its owners, whatever their motivation, for holding out against what I call "parking lot polution." I vaguely remember other such buildings beside it but they were demolished long ago.

November 05, 2005

I've walked by and photographed this pond many times--in all seasons--over the years that we've been DBG members, but yesterday was the first time I've ever seen the fountain functioning. This one I took with the sun at my back. But for fun I took several directly into the sun. One of those is below.

I desperately needed a dose of nature yesterday. On Wednesday we received a call that we had been the victims of check fraud and that a woman had helped herself to a large chunk of our checking account. They have the person's name and a copy of the check and it is probably just a matter of time before they catch her. She knew the first of the month is when the largest balance would occur. We have spent the last three days cancelling the old and opening a new account, filing numerous reports with police and various check fraud entities including the postal inspectors as it now seems clear that one of our checks was stolen from the mail and counterfeited using that routing, account and check number and the forged signature of my husband. Though they removed the money from our account, the bank held it in their possession until they could get some answers, and yesterday they returned it to us and I was able to get some temporary checks to use while I wait on my ATM and debit cards. We have been encouraged to attend a free seminar on identity theft and check fraud sponsored by our bank. I may go just because our bank has been superb in stopping the financial damage that could have occurred. From now on we are using our bank's free on-line bill-payer service--no more "checks in the mail."

November 04, 2005

For thirty-two years I have loved this tree. We have paid far too much to prevent birch bore infestation and even have purchased a special root feeder to keep it alive and healthy. When--on a cold icy day 25 years ago a car slid through the corner stop light, bounced off the juniper bush and into the tree--I called a tree doctor to see what we needed to do to keep it alive. This occurred the day before the juniiper bush was to be removed. (At the time I didn't like the juniper bush.) When I realized that the bush and the tree had saved our house, I cancelled the bush removal and we have happily pampered and pruned both of them since then. This tree has always been my favorite of the ten we have around our house. All but two of them are over 60 years old.

November 01, 2005

One of my favorite blogs is calledNeat New Stuff.Not too long ago I discovered this site for moving Optical Illusions. I have always loved things that make us think that something is something that on closer scrutiny, it clearly is not. (Maybe I should have worked for the Bush Administration.)

On a day when the mundane or the crisis of the day doesn't hold your interest, try these two sites.